The Arrival: Part One
by eternityisours
Summary: [ONE SHOT] Cho notices Cedric's every little move: especially the ones directed at Fleur, which, coincidentally, is almost all of them. PLEASE REVIEW! Parts two and three will be from Fleur and Cedric's POV, respectively.


**The Arrival: Part One**

**Rating: M **for safety, although it should perhaps be T

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything Harry Potter except for paraphernalia like posters, a calendar or two, and the books/movies. However, I **do** own this plot.

**A/N:** Fleur/Cedric pairing. Please don't flame, unless you have some real advice. And by that I do not mean something like "You suck. Never write again." Because that in itself is a completely useless comment. Also, much of this fic is based on what happens in the movie, not necessarily the book.

This is written in Cho's POV.

Writtenpartly forLiveJournals fanfic100 challenge community. Prompt081 - How?

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Cho Chang stood at the large, marble steps leading down to the Yule Ball. She pulled out a compact mirror and gave herself a once over. 

She looked, to be modest, absolutely stunning. Cho was wearing what the Chinese call a "chi pao". It had long, luxurious sleeves and the overall dress was made with a silky, oriental-printed fabric with dragons sewn everywhere. The sleeves were elongated, with elegant cuts up the sides and the dress itself was stunning, even without her in it.

Her dress only accentuated her good features, so Cedric was definitely deserving of her, right?

Of course he is, Cho reprimanded herself. You like him, remember?

And, really, what was there not to like? Cedric was gorgeous, talented, a great Quidditch player, and seemed to genuinely like Cho, unlike all of the boys in her year who were in her House.

That is, he seemed to genuinely like her before she showed up.

Who was she, you asked?

Her name was Fleur Delacour. She was a pretty—no, stunning, much as Cho hated to admit it—half-veela, and the moment that Dumbledore had announced that the Beauxbaton girls were staying at Hogwarts and Fleur had entered the room was when all of the commotion started.

All of the men in the Great Hall (even, Cho had noted with a disgusted look on her face, Professor Snape) had simply dropped their jaws and stared blatantly at her, completely unabashedly.

Apparently, this Fleur girl was completely used to this treatment, which only made Cho want to tear out her long, shimmery hair even more. Every girl Cho knew had to strive to look their best—Fleur looked like she had simply woken up like that.

Aargh. Cho could just imagine it now. Fleur, wearing a lovely silk nightgown, rolling out of bed in the morning. She would get up, walk to the bathroom in order to brush her teeth, comb her hair (normal morning rituals for a girl), take a look in the mirror and laugh, "Ahaha! Why even bozair?"

To top it all off, Fleur had twirled gracefully past the Ravenclaw table (and a seething Cho) and landed in a beyond perfect ballet stance, not once losing her balance.

Cedric, being the gentleman that he was, refused to turn in the Beauxbaton girls' direction, just for Cho's sake. Also, he seemed to realize, that doing so would make him look like a huge prat, just like the rest of the male population at Hogwarts.

However, it seemed that Cedric could not resist. A grand total of thirty seconds after the Beauxbaton girls (and namely, Fleur) had arrived when Cedric's male friends had nudged him repeatedly, telling him to look.

Cho had watched him with a heated stare, telling him mentally not to look when Cedric, to be nice to all of his friends, turned to look at Fleur.

That was when Cho knew that love at first sight was real. She had never believed in it before. Cho had always been a firm believer in that love would find her when she had been with the man for a while, gotten to know him before she could possibly have such feelings for him.

But there was no other way to describe the looks that had raced across her boyfriend's (well, not at that moment, but pretty close) face, the way his mouth had gone completely slack, or the way he had completely forgotten about his heaping plate of food, even though he had been ravenous only moments before. Though, Cho thought nastily, Cedric probably wasn't ravenous for food any longer.

So Cho held on to him, desperately, even. She tried her best to make herself believe that Cedric really was hers, that she and she alone held his attention when it came to dating. She tried to ignore the longing stares that Cedric sent Fleur's way, and the heated, suggestive ones that Fleur had sent right back to him. The two always seemed to find each other, even if Cedric always told her that it was inadvertently.

However, Cho wasn't as stupid as some people made her out to be. She was in Ravenclaw, after all, and there was a reason why the Sorting Hat had put her there.

Her tactic was to spend more time with Cedric, to try and distract him, to put him off from thinking about Fleur. Cho had never wanted to be the smothery, annoying, suffocating kind of girlfriend, but it was the only thing that she could think of.

This only seemed to make Cedric more distant.

Cho hated to admit it, but it also only seemed to make Cedric want Fleur even more.

But here she was, about to enter the Great Hall with Cedric. He had asked her, hadn't he? So maybe, just maybe, Cedric was over his little infatuation with Fleur.

What Cho didn't know was that Cedric and Fleur had, earlier that day, kissed. Not a sweet, timid, awkward peck on the lips. This was a full-on, knee-weakening, mind-consuming, numbing, leaving-you-breathless kind of kiss. But we'll get to that later.

And then Cho saw Cedric, and all of the air whooshed out of her lungs.

Okay, so he was only wearing a normal tuxedo. But someway, somehow, he seemed to make it more than that.

Oh, shut up, Cho told herself disgustedly. She was starting to sound really sappy, which was not something that she wanted to be.

But Cedric's next move, as soon as he walked down the stairs, really ticked her off.

Even before his foot had hit the floor, his gaze drifted over to—

Oh no. Not her again. Please god, NO.

His gaze had gone directly to Fleur, who was currently laughing with her Yule Ball date, Roger Davies.

Had Cho been anyone else, she might have found Cedric's array of expressions very amusing.

As soon as he spotted Fleur, his face lit up. Cho couldn't help but notice that he just seemed altogether…happier. A huge smile broke out on his face, and he began moving forward even more quickly.

Then he saw Roger, and his face darkened. Cho could see his jaw clench, but Fleur didn't seem to take notice at all.

"Cedric!" Cho called, running toward him and tripping along the way (damn heels). She wanted to erase the tortured, and yet dangerously furious look in Cedric's eyes.

He looked over to her, but his expression didn't brighten in the slightest.

"Cho," he greeted rather stiffly.

The whole night went on like that. Cedric constantly ignored what Cho was saying, often completely missing out on her attempts to start a conversation.

And Cho began to believe that Cedric had fallen hard for Fleur.

Finally, Cho had spent too long watching the two sneak what they appeared to think were unseen glances at each other.

So Cho had decided to let Cedric go, right before the third task. He'd seemed relieved, happy even, trying to mask it in order to not hurt her feelings, but failing miserably.

She noticed that not even five minutes after she had broken up with him, Cedric had found Fleur. Cho saw that he placed his hand on her shoulder, spun her around, kissed her, leaned ba—

Wait. KISSED HER?

The action seemed too natural, so cute and romantic and perfect that Cho suddenly had the urge to throw up.

Did this mean that they had kissed before? But that meant that he had cheated on her when…

Then, right after the kiss, Cedric and Harry had been released into the maze.

Cho wanted nothing more than to run from her seat and stop Cedric from going into the maze. She wanted to shake him and ask him why he had cheated on her, how he had managed to fall for a girl like Fleur, a girl who only had looks and no brains.

Obviously, Cho didn't know much about Fleur.

Mostly, Cho wanted to find out whether Cedric had been cheating on her or not. But she also wanted to rant at him, about nothing and everything.

But Cho never got the chance to rant at him. Because that night, Cedric Diggory was killed.

The day that the Beauxbaton and Durmstrang students left, Cho made it her priority to find Fleur.

It was actually extremely hard. There were Beauxbaton, Durmstrang, and Hogwarts students everywhere, whether they were just milling about or saying goodbye to their newfound friends, and Cho had to fight her way through them until she had finally arrived at the Beauxbaton carriages.

"Fleur!" Cho yelled, accidentally almost mowing over a tiny Beauxbaton girl and trying to recall the little French that she had learned from her childhood friend Pènèlope. "Whoops—_je suis désolé_—FLEUR!" 1

"_Fleur_," one of her friends whispered. "_C'est la fille_." 2

Fleur turned around and once again, she stunned Cho rather annoyingly with her dazzling beauty.

"Yes"? Fleur asked rather warily, eyes slanting downward a bit. "What ees eet zat you want?"

"I wanted—" suddenly, a roar of laughter interrupted Cho. She strained to lean forward and said a bit louder, "I wanted you to know that Cedric…"

Cho stopped as Fleur's face turned white—well, paler than it had been before, anyway. She probably thought that Cho had come to harass her about Cedric, and even though Cho would have liked to, that wasn't her priority for the moment.

"Cedric loved you," Cho blurted out quickly, before Fleur could turn away. Fleur froze it took her several minutes to get her lips to move again.

"'E…'e what? Did 'e ever tell you zat?" Fleur questioned anxiously, eyes becoming alive and bright with a burning blue fire not unlike that from the Goblet.

"No," Cho admitted, and suddenly that blue fire was gone. Then she added hastily, "But I know that he did. The day you came here I began to notice that whenever you were around, Cedric's attention faded from everything but you. There was almost never a moment when I talked to him that he wasn't looking at you." Cho swallowed hard; it was so hard to talk about him to her, but she felt that it was something that she needed to do.

"I tried to ignore it," Cho continued. God, this was so difficult. "But I couldn't. It became too apparent, too obvious for me to pretend anymore. I should have let him go at the Yule Ball, but I didn't. If Cedric were any less of a gentleman than he was, he would have done it for me." Her eyes began to tear up, signaling that she was about to cry, and she could tell that Fleur was, too.

"But I know for a fact that he loved you. When I decided to let him go right before the third task, he was so happy. He could finally be with you without feeling guilty about leaving me, because I myself had told him to." The tears now spilled over Fleur's eyes, trailing perfectly shaped rivers down her cheeks, causing Cho's own tears to spill over as well. "I saw the way that you two kissed, and it was like nothing Cedric and I had."

"_Merci_," Fleur spoke quietly, mere seconds after Cho had stopped talking. "Eet means a lot to me zat you told me zis."

"Er, erm, no problem," Cho answered. Now, this was becoming rather awkward, Cho thought. "So…so I guess I'll see you around."

"I zuppose so," Fleur said, giving a slight smile that made the group of Durmstrang boys walking past them trip. They both shared a small laugh, and Fleur turned around and stepped into the awaiting carriage.

Cho and several others stood back as the Beauxbaton carriage swung upward, driven by the ethereal horses. She watched until they flew up, up, up, into the dazzling sun and out of sight.

_The End_

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**A/N:**

French Translations:

1 I am sorry.

2 It's the girl.

I realize that the French on this is probably wrong, since I used the Google translator. :)

So, that was it:) Please review! Also, I was thinking of doing some **partner pieces **to this, one from Cedric's POV and one from Fleur's (therefore detailing the kiss, ahahaha), so let me know what you think about that.

Also, let me know if you want me to write more C/F fics, and if they're actually worth reading. If I'm just boring you all to death, then I won't post more.

Lastly, I want to personally thank the people who reviewed my last C/F fic, "I'll Wait for You", so here that is:

**random191:** Thanks. :)

**auriette:** Aww, thank you.

**Elvra:** Well, I half-read Angel! Does that count? I am going to go run and hide now. But thank you anyhow. I love you!

**quellep:** I know, it's so depressing! But thanks for the review.

**SeldomDarlin: **Thanks.

**ShanMah:** Yeah, it made me really happy. :), haha. Well, this was about the same length, but I hope you liked it anyway.

**Alyfaira:** Awww! If you really want, I'll create a multi-chaptered C/F fic. If enough people want it, then that's great. Let me know!

**anon e. moose:** Ah, you still think that that username is so clever. Ahahahaha. Well I have news for you. It makes me laugh until nonexistent milk comes out of my nose. Haha!

About how Fleur feels, that is exactly what I want to talk about in the Fleur part of this trilogy. So yay for clever me! Also, there will hopefully be much more interaction between them in parts two and three.

Oh no, I completely forgot about writing Cedric's side of "I'll Wait for You". Whoops. Will have to write that soon. Bill can go and love some other girl. Jeez.

**jane:** Thanks, I'll work on that!

**LunaLoonyLovegood:** Aww, I'm sorry for making you cry. :( But thank you for your review!

**thecutiedisease:** Thanks! I'm glad.

**nat:** Thank you!


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